Data Quality and Violence Against Women: The Causes and Actors of Femicide

The paper examines domestic 'femicide' in Italy. Under an exploratory statistical approach, we investigated: (1) difficulties and strategies for reconstructing a historical dataset on family crimes for studies over time; (2) the main causes of family femicides; and (3) groups of actors driven by the same motivations interpreted as patterns of criminal behavior. First, we integrated and systematised data from official sources to guarantee comparison over time; second, we used Social Network Analysis properties to study the relationships between 'motivations' and 'victim-perpetrator'; and third, we applied and compared community detection algorithms to the linkages between 'actors' and 'motivations' to detect groups of criminal behavior. From 2015 to 2020 in Italy, the cohabitant was the major family murderer, but in 2020, passion motivation also surfaced. Mental problems connected to parents-children and cohabitants, jealousy of ex-partners or rivals, and economic issues for blood relations were observed in 2015. Psychopathologies and money characterised parents-children in 2020, while passion and disagreements caused cohabitants or ex-partners.